The key to any good Texas Hold’em Tournament is a good blind structure. If the blinds increase too much or too quickly, the tournament will become more about who gets lucky than who plays skillfully. On the other hand, if the blinds increase too little or too slowly, the tournament may last a lot longer than you would like. The key is to find the happy middle-ground and use a blind structure that maximizes play for the time alotted throughout the tournament.
Of course, this begs the question - how can I tell how long a tournament will last. The answer is: it depends. While there are formulas that can be used as a general rule of thumb, they are not always very accurate. The best way to determine how long a tournament will last is experience and comparison. It can be very helpful to record the number of players and the length of each tournament for every blind structure you use. By doing so, you will get a good feel for how your tournaments play and how long they will last. As a starting frame of reference, assume your one- or two-table tournament will end when your blinds (small blind + big blind) equals 10 percent of the total chips in play. For example, if you have a tournament with a starting stack of 10,000 chips and 15 players are entered in the tournament, you have a total of 150,000 chips in play. You should plan for the tournament to end at about the time the blinds are 5,000/10,000 (5,000 + 10,000 = 15,000 which is 10 percent of 150,000). Please note that this formula is not accurate if your blind structure includes antes.
Overall, blinds should rise at a steady pace throughout the tournament. The mistake many beginning tournament directors make is to devise a blind schedule that increases slowly at the start, but increases very quickly near the end of the tournament. While this does allow for more play at the beginning of the tournament, those players who worked so hard to collect chips during the tournament are forced to gamble with them at the end because the blinds are such a large percentage of their total chips.
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Until you are proficient at directing tournaments, you may want to stick with some pre-established tournament structures. Here are four examples to use.
2008 World Series of Poker Blind Structure
Starting Stack = 10,000 Chips; 20 Minute Blind Levels
Estimated Playing Time: 4.5 -5 Hours for Two-Table Game
5K Single-Table Event
Starting Stack = 5,000 Chips; 30 Minute Blind Levels
Estimated Playing Time: 3.5 Hours for Single Table
1K Single-Table Event (Slow Structure)
Starting Stack = 1,000 Chips; 15-20 Minute Blind Levels
Estimated Playing Time: 4-5 Hours
1K Single-Table Event (Fast Structure)
Starting Stack = 1,000 Chips; 15-20 Minute Blind Levels
Estimated Playing Time: 4 Hours
